According to the survey, which was carried out in conjunction with the Centre of Future Studies and was the latest instalment in NatWest IPB’s Quality of Life Index, banking and finance comprise the most popular sector for women working abroad, with a quarter (24%) saying that this was where they had started their careers.
Marketing and retailing were also popular choices among the expatriate women surveyed (15.5%), as was publishing (15.5%), the research reveals.
While there used to be some doubt as to whether working abroad would help or hinder a women’s career, “this no longer appears to be the case – expat women are in the fast lane,” a summary of the report’s findings noted.
The US, Canada and Australia are consistently the top countries preferred by expats on temporary work contracts, although recruitment demand is often in other places, such as the Middle East and Asia.
Understandable
Dave Isley, head of NatWest IPB, said it was clear to see why so many career women are “happy to take the plunge and venture into foreign climes”.
“With over half of women working abroad saying it exceeds their expectations, things are looking sunny,” he added.
Those women looking to get ahead quickly, he went on, might well regard moving abroad as a sensible and viable option.
Other findings of the NatWest IPB study:
• 48% of the women surveyed said working abroad was in line with what their expectations, compared to the 52% who, as Isley noted, said it had surpassed what they had thought the experience would be like; none thought the experience fell short
• 58% said they believed cultural rules "apply more to women than men"
• The ranks of women working abroad in professional-level occupations break down into two types: those who are working permanently in the country in which they are living, who account for around three quarters of those surveyed, and the remaining 24%, who work in and travel between various countries
• Of this latter group, around 69% of those surveyed said they were working for UK companies on temporary assignments
The Quality of Life study was carried out for NatWest International Personal Banking by the Centre for Future Studies between October and November 2010.
